Search
Engine Optimization Methods

How to bring free traffic
to your website

Search
engine optimization is the art and science of trying to please the
search engines so they will place your website at the top of the
results list.

When
you search on the internet for information, the search engine returns
the results as a list of websites. This list is in order
of page
rank, where the search engine determines the order of the list
according to criteria which, for the most part, is secret.

While
the actual formulas used to calculate page ranks are known only by
a very few key employees of each search engine, the search
engines
do openly state that they love theme-based websites, keyword-focused
content pages, and in-pointing links to a website.

Theme-Based
Websites

The
search engines developed theme-based website ranking to counter the
many sneaky tricks that were being used to try to get better
rankings.

Theme-based
ranking means that the search engines like to see all the pages of
a website related to a common topic.

Here
is an example of theme-based ranking power when focused on a niche:

Our
website LittleShamrocks.com is about Ireland and all things Irish
but mostly focused on the Irish food
niche.
Our best-ranked
pages are
the recipes pages.

All
of our recipe pages are on the first page of Google and most are
#1 page rank. At this point, probably
any page we
add where
the keyword
contains Irish recipes will debut with
a top 10 page rank.

The
lesson is that you should not only have a theme-based
website but focus on a niche within that theme:"Irish" too broad a
theme"Irish Food" a good
theme but there is a lot of competition."Irish Food Recipes" a nice niche within a theme.

The
narrower the niche the easier it will be to get high page ranks and
the less competition you
will
have. It
is crucial
to the success
of your
site that you do your research on finding the
correct niche before you build your site - enough demand, but not
too much competition.

Keyword-Focused
Content Pages

Here
is how to use keyword-focused content pages for search engine optimization.
This is so important, and very very few websites actually do this.

If
your web page keyword is fine art portraits, you should
use the keyword in the title, filename, ALT & META
tags, page heading, image file name,
and in a text link like this:

1.
The filename should be Fine-Art-Portraits.html
2. The heading at the top of the page in
the <H1> tag should contain Fine
Art Portraits.
3. The META description tag should contain
the phrase "Fine-Art-Portraits".
4. The META keywords tag should have Fine Art Portraits" as
the first keyword in the list.
5. The phrase "Fine Art Portraits" should
be in the first 90 characters of body
text (not counting the heading), and
also used
again
at the bottom of the page at least once
for a short page. For longer pages you
would
want to use it more but not too much.
See the information
on keyword density below.
6. If possible, "Fine Art Portraits" should
also be used in a text link, either to
another site or another page on the same
site.
7. At least one image on the page should
have a filename and ALT tag containing Fine Art Portraits.

Keyword
Density

Keyword
density refers to how often you should use the keyword on a page.
Use it too little
and the
search engines
will
not get a clear picture
of what your page is about. Use
it
too much and the search engines might think
you are
trying
to manipulate
them.

You
should aim for a keyword density of 3-5%. A good rule of thumb
for keyword density is
to use
the keyword
just
a little
bit more
than you
normally would in your writing.

Here is a free keyword analysis tool you can
use to check keyword density:

Off-Page
Search Engine Optimization Methods

The
most common methods are creating web pages,
writing
articles and
submitting bookmark links,
all with
the goal of creating
more links pointing
to your website.

Bookmark
Sites, like Digg.com and del.ico.us,
are collections
of
favorite web sites.
These are the
easiest to join
and submit your
site to.

Free
Web Page Sites, like squidoo.com and
hubpages.com,
allow you
to create a single
web page about
anything you like
and, of course,
add
a link to your web
site as well.

Free
Article Sites, like ezinearticles.com
and
goarticles.com,
allow you
to submit short
articles and add your web
page link.

Free
Directory Sites, like dmoz.org,
are like specialty
search engines
that hand-pick
their
content. You
have to submit
your site for
review but, if accepted,
a link from
the top free
directories
will
really
help your
page
ranks.

Search
Engine Submittal

Search
Engine Submittal is the
process of
notifying
the
search
engines about
changes
to your website
so they
will
know to add
the new
information
to their
index.

There
are
a variety
of
ways
to
do submittals.
You
can manually
notify
the
search
engines
one
at a time,
or
upload
a
website
map
that lists
all
the pages
of
your site.

You
can
hire
a
service to
do
this
for
you.
Usually,
after
you
set
up
a
website,
you
will
get
a
letter in
the
postal
mail
from
a
submittal company
offering
a
one-time service
to
submit
your
site
to
300
search
engines
for
around
$50.

While
these are
all better
than nothing,
you really
want the
search engines
to know
about any
changes or
new pages
as you
make them.
Ideally, you
want your
hosting service
to automatically
handle the
submittals for
you on
a daily
basis. The
two best
hosting companies
that include
search engine
submittals as part of their basic service are Bluehost and
Site Build It!.

Assorted
Search Engine
Optimization Tips

There
are a
lot of
little dos and don'ts with SEO. For example,
it is understood that search engines dont like web pages with lots
of links. A page that is nothing but a long list of links is even worse.
These are called link farms and
they can really
hurt your page
rank.

The
rule of
thumb is
to not
have more
than 6
links to
different websites
on any
page. You
can have
a large
list of
links without
hurting your
ranking if
you tell
the search
engines to
ignore that
page with
a NOINDEX tag.

You
need to
have at
least 125
words on
each page
to be
regarded as
a real
content page.
If you
have any
less, you
should also
use the
NOINDEX tag.

Other
things that
may hurt
your ranking
are broken
links, duplicate
content, HTML
errors, linking
to poor
quality sites,
and orphan pages that
have no links from
the other website
pages to them.

More
About Search
Engine Optimization

This
is just
the briefest
possible overview
of search
engine optimization.
If you
want to
read about
SEO
in greater detail
check out
the Traffic volume of this free e-book 'Make
Your Site
Sell' by
Ken Evoy.

The
SBI
Action Guide contains a detailed 10 step process for researching
and building a website with the most effective SEO techniques. The
SBI
hosting system provides all of the research, site building & traffic
generation tools needed to work with the Action Guide.

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